Bulbous golems that self-destructed before I had a chance to smack them into shutdown. I fought a variety of spindly brass fellas who lurched and span at me. Regular enemies took some time to diversify, but by the end of my session I'd dismantled a good few monster machines. Seriously, I was shown a few bits of art before the hands-on session and it was like the devs had poured an entire Screw Fix store into the Nether. And that's starting with the enemies, who were wonderfully designed bastards and whose concept art I'd pin up on my walls in a heartbeat. This is where Steelrising mashes together elements of Bloodborne and Nioh into a surprisingly cohesive whole that encourages experimentation above all else. So, if it wasn't extra curiosity that pushed me forwards, what was it? The combat, baby. can it?!' That's the sort of craic you can expect. There she is! Okay, quick! Cue the line: 'Oh no, this can't be happening. I imagined the NPCs like cast members on the Truma Show, waiting inside a burning building for main character Aegis to pass the window. This pattern continued, with NPC chatter and dialogue doing the bare minimum to get by. To activate them, you clunk their arm downwards and the statue will spiral into the ground, before an equally ornate chair assembles itself and takes its place. Checkpoints initially appear as beautiful statues. Aha! But later he snatched the water from my grasp and only gave me a potion in return, and it seemed like a missed opportunity, a simple transaction that could've been so much more. Steelrising had a glimpse of this, as I encountered a farmer who asked if I had any water to quench his thirst.

Inch your way through Bloodborne and you'll encounter NPCs hissing at you from behind closed doors some even weave a touching personal tale into the gloomy surroundings, illuminating them for a moment. There are signs that Steelrising is heavily inspired by a certain Gothic legend in particular. When levers led to shortcuts I'd be met with that, 'Oh, I'm back here!' feeling, but moment to moment and area to area, it didn't quite command my attention as much as the big boys. Some of these things Steelrising got very right, and others it couldn't quite replicate.įor instance, many of the early levels were gorgeous and intricate, but I wouldn't say they bristled with intrigue or mystery like FromSoftware's offerings. That has less to do with the baseline Soulslikery I'd seen a million times before - collecting some equivalent of souls (Anima Essence), saving progress at some equivalent of a bonfire (a chair), carrying some equivalent of an Estus Flask (vials of blue oil) - and more to do with how those influences clearly shaped exploration and combat. Thing is, it's hard not to compare it to the likes of Bloodborne and Nioh. I understood that Steelrising is trying to carve out its own Soulslike niche with its robo-revolutionary setting, though. On the other hand I only saw a bit of story and interacted with one (1) NPC, so it was almost impossible to get a sense of Steelrising's storytelling pedigree. All the menus were open for perusal, alongside cutscenes too. Overall I got to play a hefty amount, and with no red tape. Then after a quick intermission, the devs loaded me into a build where I fought a boss and did some extra exploration. I tackled two hours of Steelrising, which saw me battle through the tutorial area, sock it to some robots in a woodland zone, and get on a boat and row over to Paris - where I socked even more robots in a grander setting.

I'd seen it in a hands-off capacity and thought it looked like it could be in line for the Soulslike throne, but with Action-RPGs it's all about hand feel: does it feel rough or smooth under the thumbsticks? As luck would have it, I managed to get hands-on with the game to confirm whether its substance does, in fact, match its style. I confess, I was worried about revolutionary robot Soulslike Steelrising.

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